“The writer needs good works—good literary ones”

“Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.”

“One needs to take one’s time because good work takes time. But it must be worth the wait in the end.”

“Being a writer is a good, good thing.”

“Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.”

“A bad writer is just a good writer with writer's block.”

“First one gets works of art, then criticism of them, then criticism of the criticism, and, finally, a book on The Literary Situation, a book which tells you all about writers, critics, publishing, paperbacked books, the tendencies of the (literary) time, what sells and how much, what writers wear and drink and want, what their wives wear and drink and want, and so on.”

“A good book changing lives. A good writer inspires.”

“Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader ("Good Readers and Good Writers", p. 3).”

“Every good writer I know needs to go into some deep, quiet place to do work that is fully imagined. And what the Internet brings is lots of vulgar data. It is the antithesis of the imagination. It leaves nothing to the imagination.”